Welcome to Neverland Population: Dwindling
by jei did it
Summary: Ten years after the Change, 190 children escaped the Dorms. 90 were recruited by Shade. Of the 100 remaining, eight survived together. Their mission isn't to overthrow the Overlords or save the world; their only goal is to survive. This is their story.
1. Chapter 1: Libera Me

**Disclaimer:** Setting, concepts, world, etc. belong to the brilliant mind that is Garth Nix. The characters, however, are mine. MINE, I say, ALL MINE! Nyaha.  
  
**Author's Note:** An explanation about the title: Well, originally I wanted something to do with children, and then I thought of Peter Pan and Neverland, a world where kids don't ever have to grow up, and the world of Shade's Children, where kids most often can't. Thus a long and cheesy title was born!  
**  
  


Welcome to Neverland. Population: Dwindling

**  
Jessica "Jei" Lee  
  
**Chapter One : Libera Me**  
  
What she remembered most clearly about the night of her escape was the blood. It was hard to forget, there was so much of it, soaked in the sheets, smeared on her thighs, on the hands of the Drone who drew that horribly still, silent, crumpled ball of flesh out of her. There was a flurry of sound that might have been conversation, and the dead flesh was gone, as efficiently disposed of as a wad of soiled toilet paper.   
  
Sucking air in through gritted teeth, she raised a badly trembling arm to push her sweat-soaked hair from her eyes. The world was blurry around her; through the smears of color that was the world, she could see dark shapes moving toward her and was suddenly afraid.  
  
Then noise: a door slammed open, something fell, shattering on the floor, things toppled and crashed. Something made a shrill, pained sound that ended with a wet gurgle, and one of the dark shapes was abruptly gone from view. Someone grabbed her arm, warm fingers tight as a vice around her wrist, and hauled her out of bed.   
  
A familiar voice, sharp now with impatience and fear, sounded from close by. "Let's go, let's go! Move your feet, girl!"  
  
"Wait, wait..." She slammed against a cabinet, barely able to stand, and fumbled with the drawers. Somehow she managed to grab two handfuls of small plastic bottles that she dumped into a makeshift pouch she formed with the hem of her flimsy gown.   
  
"Riley, come _on_!"  
  
Oh, God, her legs were filled with lead. Someone had cut them open and filled them with lead. She pushed one bare foot ahead of the other, then again, and again. She stepped on glass and felt her skin break, warm blood oozing through the stinging lines. Somebody was screaming, again and again, always at the same high, piercing note. No, not a person; sirens. Who had set off the alarm? Oh, of course--_they_ had. Lights, lights, lights, bright to blinding, then sudden darkness and cool air on her face.   
  
She was half running, half being dragged by her savior, her friend, the blond demon-angel called Shiv. "Wait, wait," she kept panting without knowing why, and once that blond head turned, its voice irritable. "Wait, you say? What for? To die? I think not! Keep moving your _feet_, damn you!"   
  
And she did. Breath strained and uneven, rivulets of sweat streaming down her face, she stumbled along after her rescuer. Each step drove a splinter of glass deeper into her left heel until she was leaving bloody, imperfect footprints across the pavement. Every time she faltered and almost fell, Shiv swore up a storm and jerked her back to her feet. They scuttled in this manner through the places the outdoor lights didn't quite reach, heading ever closer to the gates. Freedom lay on the other side. Just a few more meters...  
  
Whistles sounded from the shadows behind them, the found signal of Trackers already dispatched. Ahead of her, Shiv cursed profusely, swerving to avoid a full maniple of Myrmidons headed toward them from one side. Then they were moving again toward the gates, through them, and out the other side. But they were hardly safe; the hunt was only just beginning. And she was so tired...  
  
Her knees buckled. The dark was trying to pull her in She felt herself get dragged off the road, onto the grass beneath a clump of trees. Someone was patting her face none too gently. "Time to play your trick again, Riley. Camouflage, come on. Hide us. For the love of God, Faithful, hide us." The use of her nickname pulled her out of the sucking black long enough to remember her situation. Twining her fingers tightly around Shiv's, she gritted her teeth and concentrated as hard as she could, teetering precariously on the brink of unconsciousness.   
  
_We are not here. We are not here. You cannot see, smell, or hear us because we are not here. There is nothing here. You cannot see, smell, or hear us because there is nothing here. We are not... We are not..._  
  
Then her eyes closed and she fell into the waiting darkness like a stone to the bottom of a pond.   
  
  
  



	2. The Lost Boys

**Disclaimer:** Setting, concepts, world, etc. belong to the brilliant mind that is Garth Nix. The characters, however, are mine. MINE, I say, ALL MINE! Nyaha.**  
  


Welcome to Neverland. Population: Dwindling

**  
Jessica "Jei" Lee  
  
**Chapter Two : The Lost Boys**  
  
When she woke again, she was moving, crammed into a red metal wagon that jolted and creaked over the uneven ground. Small objects rolled in the wagon with her, bumping ever once in a while against the walls of the wagon with the hollow _tang!_ of plastic against metal. By some minor miracle she had not lost even one bottle of pills.  
  
Shiv glanced back at her from the front of the wagon, where the handle was, and grinned, the same viciously amused expression Shiv had worn often in both the Breeding Pens and the Dorms, the one that made Shiv look all at once aggressive, friendly, and incomprehensibly dangerous. "Nice ride, neh? I used a log to make it."   
  
Riley smiled groggily back, feeling guilty about being a burden yet grateful that it was one that Shiv was willing to bear. An unpleasant thought jarred her--her tracer! with it still functioning, the Overlords could find them anywhere!--and she shot a glance to her wrist. The lump that had been under her skin ever since the day she had been taken into the Dorms was gone. She examined her wrist for incision lines and, finding none, looked up at Shiv.  
  
"Where's my tracer?"  
  
"I turned it into protein," Shiv grunted, straining to pull the wagon up a ridge. One wheel caught on a rock; Shiv jerked at the handle, and the rock was torn from the earth, the wagon shooting forward over the ridge. All of them--Shiv, Riley, the wagon--went tumbling down the other side with a crash and a curse.   
  
Sitting up, Riley quickly gathered up her pill bottles, cradling them in her lap. "How long have I been unconscious?"  
  
Shiv turned over, frowning up at the lightening sky. "We've been moving for about an hour. Trackers passed us twice before that... You did a good job with your trick, but I wasn't sure how long it would last with you out like a dead bulb, so I made a log into the wagon and off we went. We'd better get going soon, they could be--"  
  
A rustling in the trees cut Shiv off mid-sentence, and they both turned sharply to look toward the source of the noise. Shiv stood slowly, a stone gripped tightly in one white-knuckled hand. Riley blinked, and suddenly Shiv wasn't holding a stone at all, but a knife.   
  
"Hoy!" a voice called out from the woods. "Are the two of you human?"  
  
Shiv was, as usual, quick to reply. "No, you twit, we're giant jelly donuts. Watch us roll!"  
  
"Identity yourselves." This voice sounded older than the first and came from behind them. Riley flinched. Were they surrounded?  
  
"I'm Shivara Siskin Sine," Shiv said, as cool as you please, "and her name's Riley Faith. She's hurt."   
  
More rustling, and the owners of the voices stepped out from behind the trees. There were only two of them, after all. They stood for a moment in silence, each warily eyeing the other. There was Riley, looking like a fallen angel with her blood-soaked white gown, matted black hair, deathly pale skin, and wide, clear blue eyes that easily brought to mind the blankly shocked expression of a startled doe. Above her stood her whip-tongued guardian, brandishing the newly created knife and making a good show of knowing how to use it, cynical green eyes even more suspicious than usual, twigs and leaves sticking out of straw-like hair. The one who had asked if they were human was a small, nervous-looking mouse of a boy clutching a gun far too big for him to comfortably handle. The second boy was taller, older, dark hair shaved close to his head, gray eyes as cool and calculating as the rifle in his hands.  
  
He rubbed his hand over the long barrel thoughtfully, then put the gun up, leaning it across his shoulder. Turning, he called out into the surrounding wilderness, "All clear. They aren't hostile."   
  
A pitter-patter of feet sounded from around them, and four more boys stepped into the clearing, dressed like the first two in shirts and trousers of earthy tones that helped them blend in with the woods. Each was armed with a gun, some carrying clubs at their belts. The air was still.  
  
The older boy stepped forward and extended a hand to Shiv, who looked at it for a long moment as if trying to decide whether to take it or to cut it off. Then that reckless grin was back on Shiv's face, and the two shook hands. Everyone else released breaths none of them had realized they'd been holding.   
  
And that was how they met Erik Nottingham and his group of lost boys.   
  
  
**Author's Note:** Future chapters are going to be longer, I promise. ^_^ This was originally part of the first chapter, but I divided the two because... I, uh... felt like it. Mew.  



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